FedEx Office Provides Free Resume Printing on March 10
Strives to Help Individuals Affected by Downturn of the Economy

DALLAS, March 4, 2009—FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinko’s), an operating company of FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX), today announced plans to offer its printing services in an effort to help job seekers across the nation. The company will host “FedEx Office Free Resume Printing Day” on March 10, 2009, offering to print up to 25 copies of each customer’s resume for free.

As reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, the nation’s unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent and the number of unemployed persons increased to 11.6 million in January 2009. With so many people looking to get their printed resumes in the hands of recruiters and hiring managers, FedEx Office is prepared to help.

The company invites customers to take advantage of this one-day event by visiting any of its 1,600+ FedEx Office Print and Ship Centers in the United States during regular business hours. This offer is good for 25 black-and-white resume copies per customer and is only valid for orders placed and picked up in-store. Customers may place orders by submitting their resume in printed format or as a digital file, and the copies will be printed single-sided on resume-quality paper.

“We understand that the economy has affected many people in a very profound way, and we want to help,” said Brian Philips, president and CEO of FedEx Office. “Printing resumes is one small way we can use our resources to help those who need it.”

About FedEx Office
FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinko’s) provides access points to
printing and shipping expertise with reliable service when and where
you need it. The Dallas-based company has a global network of more than 1,900 digitally-connected locations. FedEx Office services include copying and digital printing, professional finishing, document creation, direct mail, signs and graphics, Internet access, computer rental, FedEx Express and FedEx Ground shipping, and more. In addition, the company offers FedEx OfficeSM Print Online, an online printing solution for business and personal printing, at home, at the office or on the go. Products, services and hours vary by location.

Portable Document Format (PDF) is the standard for secure and reliable distribution and exchange of electronic documents and forms worldwide. There are plenty of free pdf converters out there. You can create a document (e.g., an ebook, contract, datasheet, or report) in a text file (Word, WordPerfect, etc) and then convert it into PDF format.

With these savings, I thee wed

LOS ANGELES — A typical bride-to-be, Katrina Macrae has bought a dress, browsed varieties of flowers and settled on a date and location for her April nuptials.

But her bridal gown is actually an ivory-colored prom dress that she picked up for $160. The flowers will be bought wholesale the day before the wedding. And she’s getting married to her fiance, Scott Smith, on a Sunday, when location fees are usually cheaper.

At a time when the average wedding costs about $30,000, Macrae plans to spend $8,000.

“Planning a big expensive wedding was kind of an unnecessary expense,” said Macrae, 26, a quality analyst for Sony Pictures. “We didn’t want to be exorbitant, and definitely the economic crunch makes us feel that more strongly.”

For those of you who are on the road, and on their cell phone, all the time, here is some great info. Fees for directory assistance calls (including ones made from cellphones), are on the increase. On Feb. 1, Sprint increased its 411 fee from $1.49 to $1.79. Last fall, Verizon and Cingular boosted fees to $1.49 and $1.79, respectively. Last month, I had to find a phone number to call a distant relative in another state. So silly me, when I couldn’t find it on the web, I called state area code-555-1212 for directory assistance from my land line. When I got my AT&T phone bill, I was unpleasantly surprised to find I was charged $1.75. The last time I had done that, it wasn’t more than 50 cents. Bad BudgetMaven.

What I should have done and will do from now on when I need directory assistance from home or cell, without incurring any charges, is dial one of these:

1-800-FREE-411 which is also 1 (800) 373-3411
Thanks to a newly expanded service called 1-800-FREE-411, you can request the digits of individuals and businesses without paying a fee at all. The start-up has been around since September 2005, but was propelled into the spotlight late last year after garnering $30 million in venture capital. The trade-off is minor: to keep the service free, you’ll listen to a short sponsor ad (on average 12 seconds) from a local business before your request is completed.

800-GOOG-411 which is also 1 (800) 466-4411

Google’s directory assistance 800-GOOG-411 is offered to the public free of charge and does not contain advertising

Users that call 1-800-466-4411 are told that the call is being recorded to improve results, and then asked to say the city and state of the sought business. Users may then search for the business by name or category, which generates a list of businesses matching the search. Users may then select a business on the list by saying “number” followed the number that corresponds to the business, or press the desired number on their phone. Once a business is selected, Google automatically connects the user to the business or sends an SMS/text message with the phone number. Alternatively, users can listen to the address and phone number by saying “details”. U.S. users may narrow search results by zip code or street intersection.

Search can also be invoked by using the phone keys if the system misses the spoken query multiple times. This works in a similar manner to predictive text input on a cellular phone.

FreeMobile411™ by V-ENABLE gives fast and easy access to millions of US business (restaurants, shops, banks etc) and residential listings, detailed maps, nearby points of interests, driving directions and much more.

The downloadable version of FreeMobile411™ is a very easy to use VOICE-ENABLED search application. After downloading FreeMobile411™, just open the application on your mobile phone, PRESS and HOLD the “talk” key and say the “City and State” you need. Next, select either “Search by Business Name”, “Business Type” or “Person”. PRESS and HOLD the “talk” key and say either the business listing you are looking for (“Joe’s Pizza”), a business category (“Pizza”) or a Person (“John Smith”). Within a few seconds, the phone number, address, map, directions, nearby places and other great features will be displayed on you phone. You also have the option to make a search by typing in your request if you are in a very loud or quiet environment.

Where the product differs from others today, such as 1-800-Free-411 and Google’s Goog-411 is that FreeMobile411™ also allows you to type in the information you need and connect to a live operator if needed. Using real people to assist with free 411 calls seems like a step back into the past, but it’s a point of differentiation that will appeal to some people, especially when automation fails.

To obtain FreeMobile411™, please fill in the information needed in the “Get Started” page of their site or click here. You can also access FreeMobile411™ in your phone’s browser by typing freemobile411.com.

Need to brush up on your Powerpoint or learn how ERP can streamline your business? Hewlett-Packard’s online HP Learning Center offers free online software, business, marketing, and IT classes for small to medium businesses (any individual can take them too). You can choose from:

Business/Marketing (9 classes): Real estate marketing, creating marketing collateral or direct mail, and a new course on learning how your business can implement ways to save energy with energy-efficient technologies in order to save money and conserve resources.

IT (14 classes): Best practices for IT: networking, data management, infrastructure and more.

Classes are free and available 24/7, but sometimes you need to purchase materials. For example, a while back I took an online class on organization based on the book, Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern (she’s had programs on PBS). Fortunately, a friend had a copy of the book, so I just borrowed it from her and didn’t need to purchase it.

NEW YORK – Women may not earn as much as men or fly up the corporate ladder as quickly, but they get the last laugh since they live longer. Right?

As it turns out, women probably aren’t saving enough to bankroll those extra years in style. They invest more conservatively, start saving later and are more likely to be in and out of the work force, according to a study released today by Hewitt Associates, a human resources consulting firm.

Suddenly, retirement isn’t looking so rosy.

Women live an average of 22 years after retirement compared to 19 years for men, and medical costs are rising, so women will need to save 2 percent more than men every year over 30 years to maintain their standard of living upon retirement, the study found.

The importance of saving didn’t dawn on Jerre Laughlin until she was in her 40s and started working in human resources.

“I was looking at pensions all day and was seeing what happens to employees who don’t save. That’s when reality set in,” said Laughlin, now 63 and a resident of Kansas City, Kan. She’s been playing catch-up since and doesn’t plan to retire until she’s 67.

Laughlin isn’t the only one who’s learning her lesson the hard way. The Hewitt study found women today still do worse by every measure: they start saving later (by two to four years), invest less (7.3 percent vs. 8.1 percent) and are in and out of the workforce more often for family reasons – gaps that can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in missed earnings, raises and benefits. The study looked at the projected retirement levels of nearly 2 million current workers of varying ages at 72 large U.S. companies and used actual employee balances.

“Women tend to be a little more risk averse, more fearful of losing money,” said Alison Borland, an author of the study.

The study also found a quarter of women didn’t contribute at a high enough level to take advantage of the company match, which is typically 50 cents for every dollar up to 6 percent of pay. On average, women earned $57,000 compared to $84,000 for men.

Yet women will have longer retirements than men by an average of three years. Socking away more now can improve the quality of those extra years.

If a woman who earns $57,000 a year boosts her contribution from 2 percent to 4 percent – an extra $95 a month – she can save an extra $81,000 by the time she retires, according to the study. That doesn’t include her employer’s matching contribution.

Delaying retirement can have a big impact too; every additional year is more time earning and less time sapping savings.

One of the biggest missteps people make is cashing out plans when switching jobs; that wipes out 30 percent or more of the account’s value in taxes and penalties.

Not surprisingly, the study states 90 percent of women were unsure about managing their finances. It also found that more companies are offering investment guidance, however.

Overall, four out of five men and women aren’t saving enough to keep up the same lifestyle after they stop working. Because of inflation and rising medical costs, Hewitt estimates workers will need to replace 126 percent of their salary after retirement to maintain their lifestyle. Both men and women are on track to replace an average of just 67 percent of that amount.